When he had ended the Mass the three lepers got up off their knees and began to talk like children. “Can you smell my gillyflowers, Brother Martin?” “The speckled hen has hatched out twelve chicks.” “You should see what Peter has been making; three maple cups all polished like glass.” “If the Lord keeps the frosts away there will be a power of fruit on the trees.” Martin opened the gate and walked into the garden, and the three followed him as though he had come straight out of heaven. No other living soul ever came nearer than the place where the path entered the yew wood. Alms were left there, and such goods as the lepers could buy. But Brother Martin had no fear of the horror that had fallen on them, and had such a fear shown itself he would have crushed it out of his heart. And so he had to see and smell Christopher’s gillyflowers, handle the speckled hen’s chicks, and admire the maple cups that Peter had made. Nature was beautiful and clean even though she had cast a foul blight upon these three poor creatures. They hung upon Martin’s words, watched him with a kind of timid devotion. God walked with them in that lonely place when Brother Martin came from Paradise and through the wood of yews. * * * * * Meanwhile, Brother Geraint had followed Kate Succory to Widow Greensleeve’s house in Cherry Acre, where the maze of high hedges and orchard trees hid his black frock completely. The girl had gone a-milking, and Brother Geraint had certain things to say to the widow. He sat on a settle in the kitchen, and she moved to and fro before him, a big breeze of a woman, plump, voluble, very rosy, with roguish eyes and an incipient double chin. She laughed a great deal, nodded her head at him, and snapped her fingers, for she and Brother Geraint understood each other. “Kate will dance to that tune. Bless me, she’ll need no persuading.” Geraint spoke very solemnly. “If she can cure the young man of his self-righteousness she shall be well remembered by us all. See to it, dame.” The widow curtsied, making a capacious lap. “Your servant, holy father.” And then she fell a-laughing in a sly, shrewd way. “God be merciful to us, my friend; yet I do believe that it is more pleasant to live with sinners than with saints. The over-pious man rides the poor ass to death. Now you—my friend——” She laughed so that her bosom shook. “We would all confess to Brother Geraint. I know the kind of penance that you would set me, good sir.” Geraint got up and kissed her, and her brown eyes challenged his. “Leave it to me,” she said; “I will physic the young man for you.” _Chapter III_ Martin had gone down the valley to watch the woodmen felling oaks in the Prior’s Wood when old Holt rode out on a mule in search of him. He found Martin stripped like the men and working with them, for he loved laboring with his hands. “Brother Martin—Brother Martin!”